I Screamed Because
by Julsgracie
Summary: Clare's thoughts on why she screamed at Eli in the S11 promo and her regrets in DTW. One-shot. "I hated myself for abandoning him that night at the hospital. I hated myself because he thought I didn't love him. I hated myself because I did. So much."


**This is my first Degrassi story, and it's a narrative from Clare's POV about the moment in the S11 promo when she screams at Eli. It is not a masterpiece-really it's just a drabble that I did impulsively and didn't proofread because I needed to try to understand what Clare was thinking. I tend to be aganist demonizing Clare, and although I don't agree with all of her thoughts below, I happen to think she feels a lot more pain and guilt than she's letting on.**

**Please review and message me if you want to talk about Degrassi!**

I don't know what made me scream at him.

In the moment when it happened I felt this incredible, out-of-control feeling course through my body. It was like I wasn't myself anymore.

It was crazy, it was the craziest thing I've ever done. It was mean, and spiteful; it was selfish and dramatic. It happened because my brain switched off and everything else in me took control.

I don't know what made me scream at him, but at the same time I know that it was everything.

I screamed at him because I hated myself. I hated myself for being too weak and too scared that night at the hospital, I hated myself for abandoning him, for leaving him, for breaking my promise. I hated myself because he thought I didn't love him. I hated myself because I did. So much.

When I saw him at school, I felt that I had done so much damage that I couldn't erase it. I went over the weeks leading up to it and that horrible night in my head for months, deciding how I should have handled things and trying to reform what had happened. I thought about all of the things about him that scared me, the things that made me need to be away from him. He was unpredictable and uncontrollable. He was all over the place all at once. Often I felt I understood him before moments came, like Stalker/Angel, that made me realize I had no idea what went on in his mind. Even though he was so broken, I felt that I didn't deserve him. And worst of all, I felt that he loved her more than he loved me, and that no matter what I did, despite the fact that I was here and she was gone, he always would.

He was so broken because she had died, and I could never imagine him feeling that way if he lost me. And then he did lose me, and when I saw him again, he didn't seem so broken at all. And it was the final thing that made me realize that I had been right, that I had been fruitlessly fighting for his love, love which he had buried. He didn't care that I had left him, because he had never truly loved me.

I spent so much time thinking about all of the things about him that scared me. But it really just boiled down to one thing: the fact that I couldn't fix him myself.

During our entire relationship I told myself that I could. And sometimes it almost seemed like I had. I know now that he was deceptive. He was reclusive and prone to lying; I know he tried to show me what I wanted to see. I noticed that things were getting worse, that he was treating me differently, possessively…it was when I noticed that he was distant or too-cheery, when I saw his hands quivering in the middle of English class, when I witnessed that frightening gleam in his eye when he was faced with Fitz. Even then, I didn't talk to him about it. I made him promises I couldn't keep because I was too scared of upsetting him. I didn't tell a counselor or talk to his parents. He needed me so much, it scared me. It made me realize that something was really wrong with him. It made me realize that although I was in love with him, I didn't need him the same way.

I screamed at him because every day when I saw him in school he looked as beautiful as the first day I met him. I hated the distance between us. We had been through so much; it killed me when he greeted me awkwardly the way he would any acquaintance, or when he ignored me completely.

It built up in me for weeks and weeks. Suddenly I realized that it didn't matter where I was or if people we knew saw and heard. I didn't care if people knew how I felt, if they saw me lose control. I felt tired of waiting, tired of the fakeness.

I screamed at him because in that moment, when I saw her playing with his fingers, smiling cheekily up at him through her glasses, and I saw his trademark smirk, I hated him so much. I hated him for taking over my life. I hated him for making me love him so irrevocably. And more than any of that, I hated him because I thought that he didn't love me back, never had, and never would.


End file.
